icy heart
by tatty ted
Summary: When Emilia Jackson's husband is killed, the police are baffled to why someone would kill such a respectable man? Then, the more the police investigate, the more they uncover a series of shocking secrets that may hold the answer to why Peter Jackson was killed. - —OC.
1. i — prologue

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icy heart  
_trial & retribution._

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**PROLOGUE.**

"Please Peter, don't hurt me." She begs. He mimicks her, laughs at her and slaps her across the face. She's used to the beatings now, it's been a year since they married. A year to the day since he began to abuse her.

He was always a jealous man. She'd had to give up her job as a Barmaid because he didn't like the attention she recieved of other men. Apparently, she was flirting with them.

She wasn't but he was paranoid. Always believed she was going to take the children and leave him for someone better.

"Peter—" She stops when a punch to her mouth leaves her tasting blood. He pushes her to the floor and climbs on top of her, his nails digging into her wrists.

She somehow manages to find the strength to fight him. She kicks him in the balls, runs into the kitchen and grabs the nearest thing she can find.

A knife. A long kitchen knife that shines in the light.

And the next time he hurts her, she stabs him. He falls to the floor, clutching his chest and she drops the knife in shock. She can't believe she's done it. She's finally done it.

He takes his last breath and she smiles, satisfied that for once she's free. She cleans up, picks up the knife and puts it in her handbag, wrapped up in a tee-towel.

She leaves home, walks around the block a couple of times before she stands at the front door, keys in hand. She unlocks the front door, pushes the door open and acts completely normal.

"Peter?" She calls, "Peter, are you home?"

She closes the door, wipes her feet on the welcome mat and places the keys on the small table by the door. She takes her shoes off, leaves them neatly by the front door and walks into the kitchen.

There he is. Lying in a pile of his own blood, face down on the floor.

She screams, starts to cry and runs to the phone. She picks up the telephone and punches in 999. Pressing the phone to her ear, she calls the police and tells them her husband is dead.

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**jottings **— a shit prologue. if anyone is reading, please review. lots of love :3


	2. ii — chapter one

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**CHAPTER ONE.**

Peter Jackson was a successful man, or rather used to be. He was a 'one hit wonder' in terms of his career as a Crime Writer, having been plaqued by writer's block for the last seven years.

He was a large man who was over six foot tall and rather stocky. He was known to the police for several minor offences including speeding and being drunk and disorderly in a public place.

The police in the last seven months had been called to the address over hundred times.

/

Michael Walker and Roisin Connor stood beside each other as Jean the Pathologist knelt over the body. The kitchen was spotless except the dead body and blood over the kitchen.

"This is one I haven't seen before." She said calmly as Roisin and Mike exchanged questioning looks, "What do you mean?"

"Well, he's only been dead half an hour."

Roisin immediately suspected the wife. There was something about her and this whole case that didn't feel right. She just couldn't put her finger on what was wrong at the moment in time.

"As you can see, he died from a single stab wound to the chest which caused him to bleed to death." Jean continued but Roisin had switched off at this point. She glanced at the wife who was stood in the hallway, staring at a photograph on the wall.

She walked towards the girl leaving Mike and Jean to talk.

"Emilia?" Emilia Jackson was young woman, barely an adult it seemed. She was of medium height, around five foot five but seemed underweight for her height. What was perhaps most shocking was that she was already a mother of two children whose photograph hung proudly on the stairs.

When Emilia turned around, there were lines of mascara down her cheeks and on her cheek was a red mark as though someone had slapped her, "How did you get the mark?"

Self-consciously, Emilia touched her cheek and with a slight smile answered; "Oh _that._" She laughed, "Violet hit me in the face with one of her toys this morning." There was a silence. Roisin knew she was lying. It was a slap mark, the hand print clear as daylight.

"Please may I leave and pick up my children?"

Roisin nodded. The girl wasn't a suspect so there was no reason why she shouldn't be allowed, "Before you leave, is there anywhere you can stay for a while?"

Emillia nodded, "Yeah." She paused, "I've got a sister Tara." She said, scribbled down her sister's contact number and address and left the house, closing the door with a bang behind her.

/

Three hours ago, a successful man was stabbed to death. Three hours later and they were still no closer to finding out what had happened.

"I want to know everything about Peter Jackson. Family, friends, where he worked. I want to know what kind of person he was." Nobody said anything as they stood up from their desks and started working the jobs they'd been allocated.

Mike glanced at Roisin's office. The blinds were drawn and he walked towards the office. Knocking on the door, he pushed open the door to find her putting something in her bottom draw, "You okay?"

She nodded, her eyes falling on the piece of paper in front of her, "Emilia said she was staying with her sister. This is supposed to be her number. I called but Tara said she doesn't know anyone under the name of Emilia."

She paused and made eye contact with him, "She did say she has a sister but her sister isn't called Emilia. It's Millie, Millie Delaney, she's seventeen."

He didn't say anything and neither did she. Neither of them could deny that they had a feeling that Emilia Jackson was alot more involved than she cared to admit. But in order to question her, they needed to find her. And that wasn't going to be easy.

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**jottings **— if you like it enough to favourite/alert, please leave me a review. :3


	3. iii — chapter two

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**CHAPTER TWO.**

In the run-down coffee shop sat a woman and her two children. The oldest of the two had brown hair, tied in a plait and wore a school uniform. The youngest was blonde haired, her hair tied into pigtails.

"Mummy, where's daddy?"

Emilia Jackson looked up from her coffee to find her eldest daughter looking at her. Her daughter's green eyes pierced her own blue eyes and she sighed deeply. She hadn't thought about how she was going to break the news that their father had died.

She was about to answer when Violet, the youngest knocked off her fork off the table, "Violet, you must be more careful." She said gently as she lent over to pick up the fork. Giving it a wipe with the napkin on the table, she handed it back to her daughter.

"Daddy won't be home for a while. Daddy's—" She paused when she saw a police car drive past. Once it was gone out of sight, she began talking again, "Lily, Violet, daddy is dead. He's never coming home."

She embraced both children as they began to cry, not really understanding that their daddy woudn't be home tonight, tomorrow or ever again.

/

Mike stuck a photograph of Millie Delaney on the whiteboard, "This is Millie Delaney or as we know her, Emilia Jackson. She's seventeen years old—" He began to explain about her height, friends, family.

"I want her found and fast." He said, "She might be able to tell us more on our victim."

/

She'd booked a hotel room for the night under the name Millie Delaney. Nobody knew her as that, that was her old name. Millie was in the past but for now, she was her distraction. She tucked both children up in the large double bed and decided that she was going to sleep on the sofa.

She took off her trousers to sleep in her underwear and glanced down at the scar in her thigh. It read FAT and she remembered clearly how it happened. Her father. A knife. Fourteen years old.

She pulled the flimsy blanket over her and tried to sleep.

/

She couldn't. Her mind kept replaying everything. The abuse. The murder. The lies. She felt like screaming, breaking down and crying but she knew she couldn't because she had the girls to think about.

She had to be strong for them.

/

Satch looked over at the office where the argument was taking place. The argument between Mike and Roisin, (who else) was loud enough to be heard from the end of the corridor and he wasn't too sure whether to interrupt or not.

He knocked on the door and as he opened it, he apologised and told them both, "There's something you both should see."

"Peter Jackson was born Mason Pritchard. He was reported missing in May 2001 by his wife Abigail."

"Right I want an address for this bastard!" Mike told Satch but he always said he had one and handed him a piece of paper, "There's more. He was reported missing along with his daughter Millie—"

"Millie Delaney." He repeated and glanced at Roisin.

/

In that moment, a piece of the jigsaw finally fitted together.

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_To whoever finds this, _

_I killed my husband — no, I killed my father in cold blood and I'm sorry. I don't care about me. I just care about the girls. Tell Tara, my sister to look after them. There's money in a savings account, it's not much but it'll get them started._

_Millie Delaney, Emilia Jackson. _

_Whoever the fuck I'm meant to be._

/

"Honey, did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"That?" Both of the occupants of room 225 looked up to see the ceiling dripping with water. Both of them wondered if the occupant upstairs had left the tap running by accident.

Whilst the wife went to tell the hotel manager, the husband kicked down the door. The scene in front of him devestated him. There were two children, clutching each others hands as bloody water surrounded their feet.

He swallowed and walked into the bathroom where he found her. Millie Delaney in the bath, both her wrists cut. He was relieved to find a pulse but it was shallow. She was dying — and her children were watching.

/

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**jottings** — if you like it enough to favourite/alert, please leave me a review.


	4. iv — chapter three

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**CHAPTER THREE.**

She's lying on the bed, wires and tubes sticking out of her. There's various machinery around her, beeping and there's a police officer on the door. Her brown hair lay on the bed, loose and untidy.

Michael Walker was inside his office when he got the phone call from a neighbouring station explaining that Millie Delaney was admitted to hospital.

"Thanks." He said as he put down the phone. He sighed deeply, picked up his cigarettes of his desk and shoved them deep into his pocket. He left the office and shouted, "Right, listen up."

He picked up a whiteboard pen and wrote the words, _ATTEMPTED SUICIDE _by Millie's photograph,

"Millie Delaney was admitted to Park Lane Hospital this evening, she tried to kill herself. Her condition is critical but stable. Satch, Lisa, I want you to talk to Social Services, Roisin, I want you at the hospital with me."

/

He took the end off his cigarette, threw it on the ground and lit it up. As he took a mouthful of cigarette fumes, he glanced over at Roisin. She was lent against the car, staring into space.

She'd been unsually quiet on this case, "You okay?" He asked. She turned her head to him and nodded her head. She apologised, made some an excuse that she was just tired. He didn't say anything but he knew she was lying.

There was something affecting her.

He took another drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the drain. Then he stepped into the car as Roisin got in the driver's seat and turned the keys in the ignition. The drive to the hospital was silent, Mike every now and then trying to make conversation but it wasn't happening.

She wasn't really listening.

"What makes a young girl like Millie attempt her own life?"

"Guilt, fear, realisation that she hasn't only killed her husband, she's killed her father too." Roisin whispered back as she parked the car in the carpark, "Stuff like that, it messes up your head and tips you over the edge."

He couldn't help but feel Roisin knew exactly what she was talking about, "But why?"

"Is it not obvious?" She asked, "Mason Pritchard abuses his own daughter, convinces the girl that it's all her fault. They runaway together, they pretend to be a married couple, new identities, a fresh start. She gets pregnant, twice over. Her daughter's. Her half-sisters."

She paused, "Don't tell me you wouldn't snap one day and kill the bastard?"

/

They're sat on the plastic chairs outside Millie's room. She'd taken a paracetomol overdose as well as slitting her wrists in the bath. Lucky to be alive yet Roisin knew she wouldn't think she was lucky.

"Coffee?" Mike asked, breaking through her thoughts. She didn't verbally reply, instead she just smiled and he walked off to the coffee machine. As he was gone, she traced the silver line across her wrist.

She was grateful that her suicide attempt when she was nineteen hadn't been successful. Yes, alright it still hurt, the memories were still there but she was a stronger person than before.

"Here." Mike's voice broke through her thoughts. She whispered thanks and took the small plastic cup. She was glad she was sat down, if she wasn't, she'd be wearing the floor tiles of the corridor thin through pacing up and down.

She took a sip of the coffee before pulling a face and placing the cup down beside the chair. They had no idea how long they'd be waiting for Millie Delaney to become conscious. They may as well have stayed at the Station and saved some petrol.

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**jottings** — if you like it enough to favourite/alert, please leave me a review.


	5. v — chapter four

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**CHAPTER FOUR.**

A couple of hours later, Millie regained consciousness and despite the protests of the Doctor in charge, Mike and Roisin were allowed to talk to her. She kept asking where Lily and Violet where.

"They're okay, I promise." Roisin whispered and saw almost immediantly that she began to relax. Roisin knew she cared deeply for her children, else why would she be so frantic about where they were?

"I killed him and I'm not sorry that I did."

Roisin looked at Mike and back at Millie, "Why did you kill him?"

"Is it not obvious?" Millie began to pull at the IV line in her arm, "Peter Jackson, Mason Pritchard, he's my father. When I was eight, I had a nightmare. He came into my bedroom and touched me inappropriately."

There was a silence before she continued, "It grew from that point. When I was twelve, we started learning about sex at school. He raped me every day from the age of twelve. When I was fourteen, I got pregnant with Lily. Mum started to suspect something, she _knew _I wasn't chasing boys but I don't think she believed my father could do such a thing."

"We or rather, he decided to leave home and take me with him. I was his favourite you see. Tara, Tara was lucky, she'd got away. We became Emilia and Peter Jackson, respectable married couple. I was sixteen when I got pregnant with Violet. He used me, raped me, beat me. I was under his control and I knew I'd be the one to die."

A tear slid down her cheek and Roisin fiddled in her pocket for a tissue. When she found one, she handed it to her. Millie thanked her with a small smile and clutched the tissue in her hand tightly.

"Why after all this time? You put up with it for — seven years. Why was today different?"

She swallowed, "This morning, I was helping Lily to get dressed. I noticed that she had a bruise on her back. I knew I hadn't done it, I'd never raise a hand to my children. I asked how she'd got it and she said daddy did it."

Millie took a deep breath and began to tear the tissue into pieces, "She told me her flower hurt. I didn't even get chance to ask why before she told me that daddy had hurt her. It fit. It fit why Lily and Violet didn't like being left alone in his company."

She burst into tears, wiping away her tears as they fell from her eyes. She was broken into pieces by what her father had done to her and the realisation that her father had began to abuse her daughters, (her half-sisters)

/

Roisin sat on the floor of the cold tiled bathroom, throwing up in the toilet. Listening to Millie brought back memories of her own childhood, memories she didn't want to remember.

Her uncle. The abuse. The positive pregnancy test. The back-street abortion that left her infertile. It's all the things that she's spent the last fifteen years trying to forgot.

She stood up, wiped her mouth with a paper tissue and dropped it into the toilet. Then she flushed the chain and left the bathroom. Without a word, she handed the keys to Mike and muttered that she didn't feel well enough to drive.

He didn't say anything, he just took the keys and walked slowly out of the hospital.

"Tell me to mind my own business but are you sure your okay?"

She didn't reply straight away. She was lost in thought but as a car door in the distance closed and made her jump, she made eye contact and nodded, "Of course I am."

/

Neither of them spoke on the journey home. They were both too busy thinking. Just when they thought they'd seen everything about this job, more shocking stuff cropped up. Things that they didn't really think would happened in this day and age.

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**jottings** — if you like it enough to favourite/alert, please leave me a review.


	6. vi — epilogue

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**EPILOGUE.**

Emilia Jackson was tried as her birth name Millie Delaney for the murder of Mason Pritchard. She pleaded not-guilty on the charge of murder but guilty to the charge of Manslaughter on the grounds of Diminished Responsibility.

She was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, released within a half of that sentence if she behaved whilst in prison.

Her children, Lily Samantha Jackson and Violet Rihanne Jackson were placed in immediate foster care following their mother's sentencing. They were later fostored by Tara Delaney, Millie's elder sister.

At her sister's trial, Tara Delaney confessed that her father had abused her too. She claimed he'd gotten pregnant but unlike Millie, she'd had an abortion as she was unable to bring her father's child into the world.

/

Emilia stared at the photograph of her two daughters, kissed it and put it under her pillow. Then, she pulled the thin blanket over her, turned on her side and cried herself to sleep.

Fifteen years. She wouldn't see her children in fifteen years. Although she was gutted that she wouldn't see Violet start school or Lily leave school and grow up, she was grateful that her bastard for a father couldn't get his hands on _her_ girls.

They were free and so was she.

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**jottings** — there we go, finished. it was only a short story and i hoped you enjoyed it. thank you so much to abbey, (increscent) for all the lovely reviews on the chapters. if anyone is reading and loves trial and retribution, please write some stories. :D


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